


make you feel my love

by CarrKicksDoor



Series: a thousand conversations yet to be had [2]
Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarrKicksDoor/pseuds/CarrKicksDoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, just sometimes, when she hears the whispers, Lizzie wonders if she's not good enough for him.  Now, everything is changing all at once, and all her fears come rushing back.  And sometimes, Darcy realizes, there's nothing he can do but be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. all at once

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on Bob Dylan's song by the same name.

Lizzie stands in the master bathroom in their apartment looking at her reflection and realizes that this is the first time she’s ever been glad that Will’s not home.  He’s away on business again, Chicago this time, and while the bed is large and cold and lonely, and she misses dancing around him in the kitchen in the morning, as she takes another look at the piece of plastic lying on the counter, she is suddenly very glad he’s not here.

 _Pregnant_.

Maybe it’s wrong.  She sets her teeth, throws on one of Will’s old Stanford hoodies so she doesn’t have to bother putting a bra back on at ten o’clock at night, and shoves her feet into her tennis shoes.  His keys are in the basket on the bar, and she’s downstairs to the car before she’s really thinking about it.  She gets in and readjusts the seat so she can reach the pedals, and as she looks over her shoulder to back out of the parking space, Lizzie thinks that if she is pregnant, she and Will are going to have to get a different car—or she’s going to finally have to break down and finally buy one of her own—because the backseat of Will’s two-door sedan isn’t big enough for a car seat.

At the drugstore, she buys two more pregnancy tests, both different brands from the one she’d brought home from work, then heads back home to their apartment.  She drinks a glass of water, waits fifteen minutes, then rips open the packages.

They tell the same story.  _Pregnant_.

She leaves the tests out on the counter as she makes her way to the bed, which tonight seems even bigger and colder and lonelier than it usually does when Will is gone, but the queasy feeling in her stomach is still glad he’s not here.  She has time to think about this, figure it out, figure out what to say and do. 

She is going to be a mother.

Crawling into the bed, she stares up at the ceiling and tries to think.  Okay, she’s scared.  She can deal with that. The first emotion she’d felt when she’d realized that she wasn’t normal late—the kind of stressed out late that sometimes happened—but really, really late, had been sudden panic.  But she’d pushed it aside and gone on with her day, waiting until she got home, and even waiting until this evening to do anything about it.

She’s been trying to figure out how.  Well, not the technical bits—she knows _exactly_ how that happened.  But she takes her birth control religiously, especially since while they’re in a long-term relationship, they made the decision to both get tested and then to stop using condoms.  Then she remembers the stomach virus she had that ruined the birthday plans Will had made for them.  Birth control can’t get into the bloodstream if it’s been thrown up.

She has no idea how she’s going to tell Will about this.  He’ll be home tomorrow afternoon—his plane gets in during the morning, and he’s supposed to go straight to a board meeting at Pemberley.  She can’t say “We need to talk.”  Even after two years together, that will scare him and cause him to freeze.  No, she needs to ask him to sit down, say “I have something important to tell you.”  He always makes time for those kinds of conversations and gives her his full attention. 

After that, she doesn’t know what to say.  “You’re going to be a father?“  Will he be a father or a daddy or a dad?  A dad, she hopes. “We’re having a baby.”  That certainly gets the point across, but the ‘we’ part touches on things she’s already worrying about.  “Hey, you jerk, you knocked me up!” Nope. 

Straight-forward has always worked for them in the past, so “I’m pregnant,” ought to do.  No matter what she says, she knows there’s going to be a beat while his brain catches up with his ears.  It’s after he processes this new information that she’s not sure what will happen.

In the best of worlds, she hopes he will pick her up, spin her around, and carry her to bed to celebrate by doing what got them into this situation in the first place.  She wants him to be incandescently happy, to want this more than anything else in the world.

She also knows that William Darcy likes his world to be organized.  His Twitter account still says that he likes things to be well-ordered, and there is nothing that screws up order like a baby.  They’ve barely begun seriously discussing getting married, and that mostly only because Bing and Jane announced their engagement after New Year’s.  They have professional goals they want to achieve—they’re both driven in their businesses, and she’s not sure how this will affect things.

She can’t imagine, not really, that he would not want a child.  She knows him well enough that she knows he will not ask her to give it up. (And even now, as scared as she is, she wraps her arms around herself, because she wouldn’t.  This might be the most frightening moment of her entire life, and it is unexpected, yes, but something in Lizzie says _mine_ and suddenly she understands her mother a little better.) 

But even though she knows better, intellectually, fear invades and whispers in her ear, suggests that Will might calmly show her the door and provide for a child from afar.  (She knows this isn’t true.  She _knows_ it. But fear does strange things to a person in the night.)

She wants to call Jane, but it’s already late in New York, and while Jane wouldn’t mind, Will deserves to know first.  So Lizzie goes to sleep with the light on, hugging Will’s pillow to her, wondering what he’s going to say.

 

It’s nearly two o’clock by the time the taxi drops Darcy off at the door of their apartment, and as he opens the door, he’s glad he decided to take the earlier flight and come home.  He still isn’t expected at Pemberley until the afternoon, so he can sleep late, and he’ll sleep much better with Lizzie curled up beside him than he would in a hotel room in Chicago.

He leaves his garment bag and his briefcase by the door and slips off his shoes so he doesn’t make noise and notices that there’s a soft glow coming from their bedroom.  Quietly making his way down the hall, he pauses in the doorway to see Lizzie curled up around his pillow, her face scrunched up as if she’s having troubled dreams.  He undresses quickly, tossing his suit into the dry cleaning basket and his other clothes into the laundry, trying just as softly to pull on his pajama pants and t-shirt.  He ducks into the bathroom to take out his contacts and stops.

On the counter are three pieces of plastic, neatly lying on a paper towel.  He blinks, looking at them, then looks back toward the bedroom.  Lizzie is still asleep.  One of the pieces has a plus sign.  One says _pregnant_.  One has some lines on it, but Darcy’s fairly certain that if he went digging through the pink boxes in the bathroom trash can for the instructions, it would also say that the woman lying in the bed in the other room is carrying his child.  He stands there for a moment, just looking at them, and Lizzie’s mocking voice says _Darcybot malfunction_ in his head.

He didn’t want to wake her when he came in, but now he has to, because he has to hear it from her.  He hurries out of the bathroom and sits down on his side of the bed, brushing her hair away from her face.  “Lizzie.  Lizzie, wake up.”

She stirs slightly, before looking up at him blearily.  “Will? You aren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.”

“I caught an early flight,” he says, trying to keep his voice even and calm.  “I didn’t want to wake you, but Lizzie, I went in the bathroom.”  He sees realization flood her features as she comes fully awake.  “Lizzie, are you pregnant?”

She swallows hard and nods.

He just looks at her for a moment, still trying to take all of this in.  A _baby_.  He doesn’t know what to do with a baby.  He managed okay with Gigi, but Gigi was nine and fairly mature for her age, and even then, he’d screwed up at times.  What is he supposed to do until a child turns nine?  The only word he can manage to utter is “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Lizzie says softly.  “I’m going to call the doctor tomorrow.  Get a blood test to confirm.”

He takes a deep breath and lets it back out.  “Okay.”  He crawls into the bed beside her, reclaims his pillow, and pulls her to him.  He has too many thoughts and not enough words, so all he can do is wrap his arm around her and hold her close and hope that she can hear the frantic beating of his heart.


	2. Reshifting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously could not manage this fic without the What to Expect when You're Expecting website. :D

Darcy’s barely able to keep his attention on the board meeting he’s in, and he knows his aunt Catherine is eyeing him from across the table, but he’s trying to ignore her and focus on the Asia trip they’re discussing.  They want him to go for a month, which he’s been steadfastly trying to nix off the bat, hitting Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.  Andrew Marcus has been pushing the trip to China, especially, for a while, but Darcy has held off.  He’s not sure he’s ready to take Pemberley international, for one thing.

In the meantime, though, amidst the talk of expanding frontiers and Asian markets, his thoughts keep going back to the early morning hours as he’d held Lizzie.  She’d very tentatively explained to him that she thought the stomach virus she’d had over her birthday had interfered with her birth control.  Her tone had been unsure, and he’d realized that she was waiting for some response from him other than a few monosyllabic utterances.  He’d pulled back enough so he could look at her face, to assure her that he’s _not_ upset or angry—just surprised and overwhelmed.

The meeting continues to drone on, and Marcus is still talking about some of his Chinese contacts, but more importantly, Darcy is waiting for Lizzie.  She’d managed, thanks to a cancellation, to get an appointment with the OB/GYN she saw in San Francisco this afternoon, and he’d made her promise that she would tell him what the results were as soon as she had them, board meeting be damned.  He’d asked her if she wanted him to go with her, but she assured him that this was not something he needed to be present for and that it was likely to be somewhat embarrassing, so could he please wait until there was something to actually be there _for_?

The glass wall to the conference room lets him see Mrs. Reynolds approaching the boardroom.  These meetings are _never_ interrupted unless something of incredible importance has come up, so when she quietly pushes open the door, all conversation stops.  “Mr. Darcy, a few moments, please?” she asks, her quiet reserve minding his privacy, even among the group of people who feel they have the utmost right to be prying into his business.

“Of course, Mrs. Reynolds,” he says, standing up and smoothing out his jacket, despite the fact that his heart is now wildly beating.  “Perhaps a ten minute break would suit everyone?  I’m sure Mrs. Reynolds can see to some refreshments?”  He raises an eyebrow at Mrs. Reynolds, and she smiles politely and nods.  He slips out the door, and as it closes behind him, she murmurs, “Elizabeth is in your office,” before she disappears to conjure up something to distract the horde he’s leaving behind in the room.

He tries not to run to his office, but he does walk very quickly there, and opening his door, he finds Lizzie in a staring battle with Anniekins, who has taken up possession of his sofa.   He sighs, picks up the dog and deposits it back into the dog bed his aunt had brought with her.  “That dog hates me,” Lizzie says.

“The dog does not hate you,” Darcy says patiently.  “The dog is simply a spoiled brat, and now I’m going to have to get a lint roller for that sofa.”  He looks at her.  She’s biting her lower lip, and he almost knows the answer without having to ask, but he asks anyway.  “What did the doctor say?”

Her head is still tilted downward, so she looks up at him through her lashes as she smiles almost shyly.  “We’re having a baby,” she says.

The confirmation is almost too much for him to bear, and he reaches out and pulls her to him, enfolding her in his arms.  For the first time, he understands why women sometimes call even the most civilized of men Neanderthals, because he feels like one.  Lizzie is _his_ , and she is going to have _his_ baby, and they will be _his_ to love and cherish and protect.  “When?” he asks, finally letting her go.  “Here, sit down.  No, wait,” he says, remembering that Anniekins has shed all over the couch, and directing her to one of the chairs in front of his desk, taking the other himself.

“Well, I’m apparently six weeks along,” Lizzie says, her face blushing a little bit.  She must see him trying to do the math in his head, because she waves a hand to stop him. “They count these things a little weird, but in any case, the baby should be here the second or third week of December.  It’ll have a hard time being so close to Christmas, but we can make sure that it has a separate birthday and Christmas.”

“When is your next appointment?” he asks. 

“2:30, a month from tomorrow,” Lizzie says.  “The doctor said it was possible that we might be able to hear the heartbeat by then.”

He gets up and opens the door to his office.  Mrs. Reynolds is back at her desk already.  “May 11.  I need you to clear my schedule for that afternoon.”

Mrs. Reynolds opens up his calendar, and he feels Lizzie come up behind him, her presence warm against his back. “We were supposed to have Terence Drake in that afternoon.”

“Reschedule it,” he says.

Mrs. Reynolds rarely ever questions him, but he sees her eyebrow raise.  “We’ve been trying to get this meeting with Drake for months.”

“I know.  Something more important has come up, however.  Please send him my sincere apologies,” Darcy said.

“You’re cancelling on Terence Drake?” a shrill voice says from behind him, and he fights not to wince as his aunt Catherine rounds the corner.  “He could be a very lucrative potential investor.”

“I’m aware of that, Aunt Catherine, but other issues have come up.  I will meet with Mr. Drake, but at a later date,” Darcy says, aware that Lizzie has slipped back into the office in hopes of remaining unseen.  “I thought you were getting refreshments.”

Lizzie’s plan is going to be for naught, however, because Catherine is sweeping past him and into his office before he can stop her.  “I wanted to check on my Anniekins—oh. Liz. Well, William, I didn’t expect the board meeting to be halted for your own personal indulgences.”

He grits his teeth.  “Aunt Catherine, you know me better than that.”

“Mrs. De Bourgh,” Lizzie says, offering her a tight smile.  “How good to see you again.  I didn’t realize you were in town.”

“Yes, well, board meeting and all,” Catherine says, waving a hand as she picks up Anniekins and strokes the little dog’s fur.  “And how is your little business going, Liz?”

He almost winces, but Lizzie is all poise and poison.  “Extremely well.  Thank you for asking.  I understand that Collins and Collins in Canada may actually finally make it in to the black next quarter.  I think that’s wonderful, and it will take such a burden off the US branch, given that it’s been both expanding almost exponentially and supporting the Canadian endeavor for the last two years.”

Catherine looks over her glasses at Lizzie, but Lizzie’s worked her magic, because Lizzie hasn’t actually said anything uncomplimentary—in fact, she’s been nothing but, but she’s rubbed in the fact that it was _her_ best friend who was responsible for the American Collins and Collins success in the last two years, and Catherine’s hand-picked protégé who has made a near disaster of the Canadian front.  She simply sniffs and coos at the tiny dog in her arms. 

Lizzie turns back to Darcy and pulls out his keys.  “I left the car in the parking lot.  Thanks for letting me use it today.”

“Anytime,” he says, leaning down to kiss her gently.  “I’ll see you at home.”

He watches her leave, torn by the utter need to follow her, to suddenly hover over her, but his aunt Catherine’s disapproving sniff causes him to turn back to her.  “Really, William,” she says.  “So important you had to interrupt a board meeting?”

“Enough,” Darcy says, slipping his keys into his pocket.  “I’m going back into that room and telling Marcus that the Asia trip isn’t happening.”

“I beg your pardon?” Catherine says, taken aback.

“First of all, at this juncture, I am not in a position to be spending more than a week at a time on business trips,” Darcy says calmly.  “And no, I will not explain to you why.  Second, as you well know, I have been hesitant about taking Pemberley international.  Collins and Collins’ disastrous foray into Canadian media has been an object lesson into jumping into a market unprepared.”

“This trip is intended to prepare Pemberley for that market!” Catherine says, putting Anniekins back down onto his sofa. 

“Furthermore,” Darcy says, “I cannot, with good conscience, take Pemberley, a digital media company, into China, a country which is rampant with government censorship.  I will not allow our company to be dictated to by politicos in the Chinese government, and I certainly will not allow Pemberley to become a mouthpiece for government propaganda.  Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong are all Chinese territories, and we aren’t going there.  Tokyo will remain an option, but we will table it for now.”

“And the board gets no say in this?” Catherine says.  “I own 30% of this company, William!”

He calmly looks his aunt in the face.  “Gigi and I own 51% of Pemberley, and Gigi has named me her voting proxy on the board.  Would you care to do the arithmetic?”

The positively poisonous glare he gets in response says enough as she stalks out of his office.  He pulls out his phone and texts Gigi. _Aunt Catherine is going to call you in a fit about today’s board meeting. Back me up. I can’t explain now, but I will be able to later, I promise.  Please?_

The text he gets back is short and sweet: _Always, big brother. Bringing Thai over to your house for dinner tonight.  See you at seven!_

He puts his phone away and heads out the door to break the bad news to the board.  He gets two steps out of the office before he turns around, walks back in, picks Anniekins back up off the sofa, and replaces the barking rat back into its deluxe bed in the floor.  Satisfied that the dog is too small to get back up onto the sofa itself, he closes the door behind him and goes to face a pride of lions in their den.


	3. everyone deserves (ginger) tea

It’s a sign of how much Will has loosened up, she thinks, because most evenings now, his tie is hanging around his neck when he comes through the front door, untied in the elevator on his way up to their apartment.  He smiles at her as he closes the door behind him, pulling his tie from around his neck and draping it over the chair before following with his suit jacket.   She can’t help but smile back at him from her position on the sofa, propped up with her tablet, but she notices how tired he looks.  The tight lines around his eyes are back, and he’s got that set to his jaw that says work has been difficult.  “Hey,” she says.  “How did your meeting go?”

He shakes his head.  “It was—“ he pauses, looking for the right word, “—fractious.  When Gigi gets here, I’m going to have quite a bit of explaining to do.  I’m sure she’s had an earful from my aunt Catherine by now.”

“That bad?” she asks, and she almost doesn’t need an answer, because he’s walking over to the bar.  He stops halfway, though, as if he’s thinking better of it, and she can’t help but smile.  “Will. It’s Friday, and you’ve had a hard day.  Pour yourself a scotch.  It’s not going to hurt my feelings that I can’t have any.”

One side of his mouth quirks into a smile, and the tightness in his face begins to ease into the gentle amusement he shows because she knows him so well.  He does pour himself a tumbler, and asks her if he can get her anything, but she gestures to her glass of water, and he sits down at the other end of the sofa, pulling her feet into his lap.  “The board is upset that I’m cancelling the Asia trip, particularly the China part.”

Lizzie raises her eyebrows.  “That’s a really big deal.  I can imagine why they’d be upset.”

He takes a sip of the scotch and shrugs.  “There’s too much risk involved in the Chinese market right now, and I won’t have Pemberley bowing to political pressure there.  And I don’t want to release Domino into the Chinese market either.”

“Too many copyright problems,” Lizzie murmurs, understanding.  Domino is proprietary, and Pemberley has worked very hard to protect the code for the app, and the counterfeit market in China on both hardware and software is notorious.  “What about Tokyo?”

“I’m putting it off,” he says, turning to look at her straight on.  “Lizzie, I’m going to have to go on business trips in the next nine months.  I can’t stop that, but I am going to limit them as much as possible.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t go to Tokyo,” Lizzie says, leaning her head against the back of the couch. 

“Yes, it does,” he says slowly.  “I’m not going to go anywhere I can’t drive back home from. We live in uncertain times.  If something happens, if God forbid, flights are grounded, I want—I _need_ to be able to get back to you.”

She reaches out and squeezes his hand, because of course, he thinks of these things—these are the kinds of things that tumble through his head and keep him awake at night.  “In any case, the board was quite upset.  Aunt Catherine is, I’m sure, trying to convince Gigi to help either influence me or override me, but since Gigi and I own the controlling interest—“

“—and especially once Gigi understands all your reasons why, including the fact that she’s going to be an aunt,” Lizzie finishes his sentence as he takes a sip of his scotch, “Catherine won’t have a leg to stand on.”  She tries not to wince inwardly.  She won’t go so far as to say that Catherine hates her, because the word _hate_ would imply that Catherine bothers to think of Lizzie highly enough to rank that much emotion.  Instead, Lizzie often feels like Catherine considers her as a bug to be squashed and neatly trashed, and she’s not looking forward to what Catherine de Bourgh will say when she discovers that she’s going to be a great-aunt. 

And once Catherine knows, the rest of Pemberley’s board will know as well.  She’s met the Pemberley board at various functions over the last few years, and she’s not sure what they’ll say to all of this. Will has good reasons for not taking Pemberley into China, not yet, but something twists in her stomach, making her just a little nauseated at the thought, because part of the reason is because he doesn't want to leave Lizzie. It's not something that she's comfortable with, entirely. It's not that she's not glad that he's staying close to home; the thought of him being gone for very long is enough to cause her to want to panic right now, but he's also responsible for a whole company, and he should be making decisions for the good of the company and all the people who work there, not based on Lizzie and how she feels.

Will seems to notice the shadow that comes over her face, but he doesn’t have the time to ask her about it, because Gigi is sailing through their front door, keys and a portfolio in one hand and Thai food in the other.  “Good evening, all!” she announces cheerfully.  The smell of curry, sweet with coconut milk and rich with garlic and spices, comes with her, and while Lizzie has been looking forward to her matsaman all day, the slight nausea she’d been experiencing all afternoon turns into something much, much worse, and she bolts for the bathroom.

Will’s not far behind her, racing to make sure she’s okay.  “Lizzie?”

“Oh, my God, the smell,” she chokes out, trying to spare him the details.  “Get it out of here.”

He ducks out of the bathroom, and over her own misery, Lizzie can hear his voice, though she can’t make out the words, and Gigi’s higher response and the click of Gigi’s heels as she goes away, hopefully to dispose of what had been meant to be their dinner.  Will re-enters the bathroom, lights a candle on the counter to help dispel the curry smell, and wets a washcloth for her.  “Here,” he says, softly, kneeling down next to her.

Lizzie takes it gratefully and runs it over her face, wiping away the tears that necessarily arise in this kind of situation.  “I’m okay,” she says, though even she can hear how wan her voice is.  She’s still not surprised when he leads her to their bedroom.  She brushes her teeth while he pulls out some pajamas for her.  “Here,” he says.  “Why don’t you put these on?  They’ll be more comfortable.”

She does as he suggests, though she could do it without his hovering, but he’s concerned, so she lets him help her pull off her blouse and tug on the pajama top, then pull back the covers to the bed so she can slide in, pillows propping her up.  He’s got the little worried line in his forehead now, and she reaches out to smooth it away.  “It’s okay.  This happens.  I was reading about it this afternoon.  Perfectly normal.”

There’s a tap on their bedroom door, and Will opens it for Gigi, who’s waiting there with a mug of tea and an expression that suggests she’s just kicked a puppy.  “Here, I brought you some ginger tea,” she said.  “It’ll help your stomach.  I’m sorry you’re sick!  I didn’t mean to make you sick.”

Will’s laugh rumbles out of his chest, and Lizzie can’t help but smile as he retrieves the mug from his sister and brings it over to her.  Gigi looks offended that her brother is laughing at a time like this, but he hands Lizzie the mug, smiling down into it.  “You know, Gigi, I have a very distinct memory about ginger tea,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed, his eyes on his little sister.  “Dad had been making ginger tea for Mom every morning, but he was going on a business trip, so he told me that it was my job to make the tea for Mom while he was gone.” 

Lizzie feels her heart stop briefly.  He doesn’t talk about these things, but his expression is open and happy and relaxed as he tells the story, and from the look on Gigi’s face, she’s not heard this before.  “The very first morning, I made Mom her tea, and brought it to her.  I was expecting her to still be in bed, but she was in the bathroom, throwing up.  I was very worried, of course.  I was supposed to be the man of the house and taking care of her while Dad was gone.”  His eyes are shining with the memory now.  “So I, at the ripe old age of nine, told her she had to go back to bed if she was sick, and I would call Dad and tell him to come home.  And that was when I found out that I was going to be a big brother.”

Lizzie doesn’t know if it’s hormones or just the fact that it’s _Will_ , but she wipes tears from her face again, and Gigi’s lip is quivering just a bit, even as she smiles at her brother, but then she looks between Will and Lizzie and then to the mug of tea and says “Oh my _God_ , are you _serious?_ ”

The squeal she lets out when they grin at her is ear-splitting.


	4. mother's days

Gigi is eventually sent home with strict instructions not to tell anyone—not Fitz, not Lydia—because they’re taking their time about this, and Lizzie’s still trying to figure out how she’s going to tell her mother, who is going to be so thrilled she’ll be beside herself.  She’s thinking about it all Saturday morning as she and Will go out for a walk, pick up the prenatal vitamins that the doctor had prescribed for her, and go to the bookstore to peruse the section on pregnancy and parenting.   They eat a late brunch out at a café, and Lizzie flips through the book, and while Will still hasn’t said much about his own feelings, when she picks up a blueberry from her fruit salad and tells him that the book says the baby is perhaps about that size between six and seven weeks, he entwines his fingers with hers and the look he gives her over his glasses is one she has come to recognize as pure love.

He has to take a call while they’re walking, and she sits on a cement railing and waits, continuing to flip through one of the books they’ve bought, and she can’t help but listen in as he finally says “Landon. It is Saturday morning. This is not an emergency.  Put it away.  We’ll deal with it Monday.”  With a few more words, he hangs up and returns his phone to his pocket, and she blushes, because yes, while Landon does have a tendency to overreact somewhat, Will has still put his business aside yet again for her.

They’re still strolling when she finally admits that she’s going to have to put aside her own business for a few days.  “I need to go home.”

He looks over at her, confused.  They’d still intended to go by the grocery, but he nods, putting a hand on her back in concern.  “We can go.  Are you not feeling well?”

“No, not that,” she says, shaking her head, and continuing on toward the store.  “No, I mean, I need to go home to my parents’ house.  I don’t feel right telling my mom over the phone.”

“Would you like me to go with you?” he asks.  His brow is somewhat furrowed, and she has to admit that she’s not entirely sure what her father will say to him when he finds out.  But more than that, she truly isn’t willing for him to put more of his work aside for this, and she tells him she can do it herself.

 

She spends Sunday rearranging her schedule so she can work from home.  Will, though, is particularly quiet after she books her flight and escapes into their bedroom for a little while.  When she goes to find him, he’s sitting on the edge of their bed, deep in thought.  She asks him if he’s okay and he sighs and says, “I’m reminding myself that statistically speaking, airplanes are safer than automobiles.”

It’s been six—seven—months since they’ve talked about that—about the fear that sometimes haunts his dreams that something might happen to her, and she walks across the bedroom to him.  He wraps his arms around her and lets her hold him in return, resting his head between her breasts.   “I have so much more to lose now,” he says quietly.

He’s trying to stay calm, but she can feel his heart start to race even though he’s controlling his breathing, and she leans down to kiss him. “I’m here,” she says, ghosting her lips over his, then she corrects herself.  “ _We’re_ here.”

He tugs her down to the bed with him, and in the warm Sunday afternoon sunlight, he slowly undresses her, taking his time.  He’s careful with her breasts, because they’ve turned sensitive and sore, and she lets her fingers run up his back, nails gently raking along his skin.  They don’t speak, letting their bodies do all of the talking in the quiet, and he bends over her, his hands warm against her as he passes them over her stomach before placing a single kiss there.

If she’d ever been worried that he wouldn’t love her, love their child, she knows that she was wrong with that simple kiss.  His quiet has not been disapproval.  She can see it as he slowly pushes into her, his gaze never leaving her face.  His quiet has been the adjustment as new love takes root deep in his heart, attended not just by the joy of a new life, but by the worries and the fear of what might happen, and it’s his whispered “I love you,” that causes her to let go and fall over the edge.

 

Monday morning, he drops her off at the airport, insisting on parking and walking her in, all the way to security.  He reminds her not to go through the backscatter machine and to call or text him as soon as she lands and again as soon as she gets to her parents, and she smiles and promises, because yes, he’s being overprotective, but she doesn’t think he can help it.

But what brings tears to her eyes is how he touches his forehead to hers, then gently reaches out to touch her stomach.  “Take care of your mother,” he whispers.

 

Mrs. Bennet only works half-days at the doctor’s office on Mondays, so when she hears the car door slam from the driveway, she looks up from the cookbook she’s flipping through in confusion.  Her husband would call if he was going to be home early, and Lydia wouldn’t be visiting from UCLA on a Monday.

So when her middle daughter bursts through the front door, she can’t help but be surprised.  “Lizzie!”

Lizzie doesn’t say hello.  “Why is there a For Sale sign in the front yard?” she demands.

Oh, dear.  Of course that would be the first thing Lizzie would notice, and they hadn’t meant to break the news to the girls that way.  “Oh, sweetie.  Well, with you and Jane moved out, and with Lydia in LA, your daddy and I don’t need this whole house to ourselves.”  Besides, while the Bennets had managed to finally refinance the house, it still wasn’t a terribly wonderful financial investment on their part right now.  “So we’re just testing the waters, so to speak—Lizzie, sweetie, why are you crying?”

Lizzie has always been her father’s daughter—so much so that Mrs. Bennet has sometimes despaired of ever really understanding her middle child.  She understands Jane and Jane’s sweet spirit, and she understands Lydia and Lydia’s wild ways, because she’d been a bit of a hellion of her own as a teenager, but Lizzie, always practical and even, has always taken after her father.  In fact, Mrs. Bennet can count on one hand the times she’s seen Lizzie cry since her daughter turned sixteen, because she and Lizzie simply don’t connect sometimes, but now Lizzie is standing in the foyer, tears streaming down her face and what comes out of her daughter’s mouth is “How do I bring the baby to Grandma and Grandpa’s if you all aren’t _here_?”

It takes her a few minutes to figure out what Lizzie has said and for the reality to sink in that she is finally, finally, going to be a grandmother, which is her reward for not killing any of her children as teenagers, and she _is_ going to be a grandmother before Mrs. Lu, and with that in her mind, she marches past Lizzie and flings open the front door.

The For Sale sign is a solid piece that’s been hammered into the yard, but Mrs. Bennet gets her hands underneath it and _pulls_ for all she’s worth.  She ends up flat on her rear end just as Louisa Arnold drives by, but the sign is out of the yard, and she triumphantly brings it into the house, dropping it in the foyer, never-minding her clean floor.  Dusting off her hands, she looks at Lizzie, who is staring at her as if she’s grown another head and raises her eyebrows.  “What?” she asks.  “We’ve got to have room for the grandbabies to play.”


	5. porch nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to God, there *is* actually a plot to this story, and I *am* getting to it. I just kept having all these scenes pop into my head.

Lizzie spends the afternoon snuggled up on the couch with a mug of decaf tea, Kitty Bennet, and her mother, as her mother goes back and forth between asking questions about the baby and Will and telling her stories of her own pregnancies.  “You know, my dear,” her mother says, “after about two weeks, you told your father that you were ready for Lydia to go back where she came from.”

Lizzie winces at that.  “I suppose I never had a proper appreciation for Lydia until recently,” she muses.  She is proud of her little sister, though, because Lydia is at UCLA, and working hard.  Her sister has decided that The Lydia Bennet doesn’t get mad—she gets even—and so she is going to make something of herself and become a lawyer, so the George Wickhams of the world can’t prey on other girls like her.

“What do you think you’ll name it?” her mother asks.  “Ellen and Stuart Gibson just named their little boy Caeden.  It’s a little untraditional, but I thought it was nice.”

“If it’s a boy, I think his name will be William Bennet Darcy,” Lizzie says.  “It’s a family thing for the Darcys. The mom’s surname becomes the boy’s middle name.”

“That would be lovely,” her mother says.  “You could call him Ben, so people don’t confuse him with his daddy.”

The front door shuts, and Lizzie hears her father’s voice.  “Alice? We haven’t had an offer on the house already, have we?”

“In here,” her mother calls, and her father stops in the doorway to the den, his face lighting up in surprise.  “Hey, Lizzie-girl,” he says, kissing the cheeks of both women.  “What are you doing home?”

“Lizzie has news for us,” her mother says.  Mrs. Bennet’s eyes are sparkling, and she’s struggling to keep from bursting with the good news.  “You might want to sit down.”

Mr. Bennet looks from one to another, and Lizzie can barely keep from smiling herself, because her mother is _so_ excited, and she sees that her father is ready to stretch this out just to keep his wife on the edge of her seat.  “News?  Well, let me settle in here.”  He reaches for his pipe, packing it with tobacco, and it’s such a habitual motion for him to do and for them to watch, that it’s only after he’s lit the match and preparing to light the pipe itself that Lizzie and Mrs. Bennet both shout “No!”

He stops, lit match in hand, and Mrs. Bennet continues.  “You can’t smoke around Lizzie.”

Lizzie gives him a smile.  “Secondhand smoke.  It’s not good for your grandbaby.”

He stares at her for a moment until the lit match burns down to his fingertips, and he yelps in pain.

 

Her father does get his pipe later that evening, going outside on the porch to smoke instead of having it in the house.  He sits out on the swing that he put up for her mother years ago when the Bennets first moved into their house, because her Southern mother could barely conceive of a front porch without a swing.  After he’s finished smoking, Lizzie goes out and sits down next to him.  The air is cool, and she can hear crickets and birds and the occasional owl, and the sun has just barely gone down—if there is a time of day that has always belonged to she and her father, this is it.

“Are you upset with me?” she asks quietly.

He taps out the ash from his pipe over the porch railing into the garden where her mother has planted the impatiens, because the ash will help them grow.  “Why would I be upset with you, Lizzie-girl?”

“I’ve done this in the wrong order?” she suggests.  “I’m not married.  I’m not even engaged.”  She hates that she’s been indoctrinated enough into the patriarchal order of things that this is bothering her, but it wouldn’t bother her so much, she thinks, if it didn’t bother her father.  She’s been in conflict of one sort or another with her mother her whole life, but her father has never had to punish her with anything more severe than a stern look.  He’s the one she’s worked so hard to make proud.

He puts his pipe back in his mouth, as if he was smoking it, though there’s nothing in it now.  “Are you happy?” he asks.

The question takes her by surprise.  “Happy?”

“In San Francisco. With your business.   With William.  With having a baby,” he says.

She looks over at her father in the dying light and considers carefully, knowing he’ll wait for her answer.  In some ways, she thinks, Will does the same thing, patiently waiting on an answer as long as it takes her to give it.  “San Francisco is amazing,” she says, “and business is really going well.  I never thought that I’d be doing this well this soon, but I’ve learned a lot, and Will’s really helped with that.”  She looks out over the yard.  “And Dad, sometimes I wonder how I managed to get so lucky.  If everything in this universe was fair, I never should have had a second chance with him.  I never should have had a chance to get to know who he really was.  But I did.  And I fell in love with him, and he still loved me.”

She looks down at her stomach.  “And now we’re having a baby!  I never thought I could love anyone as much as I love Will, and now we’re having a baby, and already I love it so much it _hurts_.”  Lizzie takes a deep breath.   “Dad, I’m scared to death.  Is this happiness?  I have no idea.”

Her father chuckles to himself and puts his arm around her, pulling her in to him so he can hug her.  “It sounds like happiness to me, Lizzie-girl.  And when that little one comes along, you’ll understand that all that matters, all that _ever_ matters, is your child’s happiness.”  He gives her a kiss on her temple. “That’s all I care about.”

 

Darcy gets the honor of telling his best friend that evening that he’s going to be an uncle, and he can’t help but smile as Fitz jumps off the couch in excitement, because this is apparently the greatest news _ever_. 

“Sit down,” Darcy says finally, his amusement still showing on his face as he hands Fitz one of the microbrews from the fridge.  “That’s only half the reason I asked you to come over here.  It’s time for you to make amends for being a deplorable wingman.”

“I cannot be held responsible for my lack of information!” Fitz yells down the hallway as Darcy retreats to the study to retrieve the small box from his desk.  When he returns, he opens it and sets it on the table, and Fitz grins at him.  “Darce, my man, I didn’t know you swung that way, but Lizzie and Brandon will _kill_ us.”

“Why are we friends?” Darcy asks, not for the first time, and waits for Fitz to pick up the box that holds his mother’s engagement ring.

“Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t asked her yet,” Fitz says, giving the ring a once over.  It’s a large diamond, surrounded by smaller ones; if the middle stone had been a sapphire, it would have looked a bit like the ring Prince Charles had given Princess Diana once upon a time. 

“The ring has had me a bit flummoxed,” Darcy admits.  “It’s not quite…Lizzie, is it?”

Fitz hands him back the box.  “Not really, no.  But it means something to you.”

Darcy nods.  “There’s part of me that wants Gigi to keep this ring. The jewelry belongs to her, though she says she doesn’t mind if I give it to Lizzie.” But despite his sister's protestations to the contrary, this is still their mother's ring, and he feels like Gigi deserves to hold on to every piece of their mother that she can.

“Have you considered having the stones reset?” Fitz finally asks.

Darcy looks over at him.  “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Fitz says, taking the box back.  “Look, what’s going to make Lizzie uncomfortable about this ring?  The big honking diamond in the middle, right?  But she’d never say it because it was your mom’s.  But this setting isn’t antique, and you want Gigi to have part of it, too.  So, take the outer stones, have them reset with a smaller center stone, in platinum instead of yellow gold.  Give that to Lizzie.  Take the center stone and have it made into a necklace for Gigi D. You can give that to her the day she gets married.”

Darcy half wants to scowl at the thought of Gigi getting married, but he has to admit that Fitz’s idea is brilliant.  Both of the women he loves best can have part of the ring, and for Lizzie, he can give her something that harkens back to the past and all the solidity and love that he remembers from his parents’ marriage _and_ something new that can symbolize what they will build together.  “That is a truly inspired plan,” he says.

Fitz grins and takes a drink of his beer.  “And _that_ , my man, is why we’re friends.”


	6. beating hearts

**One Month Later**

Lizzie’s happy and comfortable, half asleep, curled into the blankets, and if she was more awake, she would be positively relishing a Sunday morning with nothing to do but to snuggle up in bed and sleep.  She’s been exhausted—the toll of the first trimester, she’s read, and sleep will apparently become a precious commodity in a few months.

She hears a noise next to the bed and opens her eyes to see Will standing here, still dressed in a t-shirt and his pajama pants, a tray in his hands.  “Good morning,” he says.  She yawns and makes herself sit up to discover the tray has a plate of divine-looking French toast, a glass of orange juice, and a small vase with a rose in it.  She blinks sleep from her eyes, not quite understanding what she’s done to deserve breakfast in bed (though it does happen from time to time for no reason at all). 

“Good morning,” she says, pushing back another yawn.  “What’s this?”

His eyes are warm and happy and perhaps even joyful as he sets the tray in her lap and sits down on the edge of the bed.  “Happy Mother’s Day, Lizzie,” he says softly.

Part of her melts.  It’s moments like these that she remembers why she fell in love with this man, because for all of the grand gestures that he can—and sometimes does—make, he does little things like this or something as simple as offering to refill her tea so she doesn’t have to get up, and they are just as meaningful.  “Thank you,” she says, leaning over her tray to peck him on the lips.  “Where’s yours?”

“The first batch got a little crispy,” he admits.  “So I ate that while I prepared yours.”  She takes a bite, and nods approvingly.  He smiles and pats her leg.  “I’ll be right back.  I have something for you.”

He jumps off the bed and heads toward the door.  “You already brought me breakfast in bed!” she protests.

When Will is really, truly happy, his grin is infectious, just like it is at this moment.  “And I have something else for you.  Which you will accept gracefully and say thank you for, Lizzie Bennet, because I love you and enjoy doing things that make you happy.”

He disappears out the door, heading towards his study, and she shakes her head, returning back to her French toast, knowing that there really is no stopping him when he’s in a mood like this.  It takes him several minutes—she’s almost through with her breakfast by the time he returns, and she smiles as he sits back down on the edge of the bed.  “Did you get lost?”

“Hardly,” he said, handing her an envelope and taking her empty tray and moving it out of the way.  Across the front, in his neat handwriting, the words “For Mommy from Baby” are written.  She traces her fingertips over the words before turning the envelope over and opening it up.

The contents of the card are ignored in favor of the message—a short, sweet, heartfelt statement of love signed “From William and Baby” that brings tears to her eyes.  “Will,” she begins, but she can’t finish. 

He brushes the tear away from her cheek, kissing her gently.  “You should see what the gift is.”

She finally looks at the contents and discovers a gift certificate for the spa that Gigi likes to frequent.  “According to Gigi,” Will says, “they have a massage therapist who specializes in pre-natal massage.  I’m happy to rub your back or feet, but I thought they might do a better job than I do.”

Her back actually has been killing her, something the books say has to do with ligaments loosening up, so the idea of a massage sounds fantastic, and she says so.  “Thank you.”

“There’s something else,” he says, and now she catches a note of hesitancy in his voice, but he keeps going, and she’s wondering if he took so long in the study so he could make sure he had what he wanted to say straight in his head.  “Lizzie, I have a question for you.  It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a while, since last fall at least.  But I want you to know that I am not asking you this because we are having a baby.”  He takes her hand, caressing the back of it with his thumb, before he looks up, meeting her gaze straight on.  “I’m asking you this because I love you.  Because you make me a better man.  Because you, Lizzie, are my heart.”

She can barely breathe, because of all the ways that she’s thought this could happen, she never dreamed that it would happen on Mother’s Day morning in the warmth of the sunlight in their bedroom in their pajamas, but it is so utterly, completely _perfect_ , and he pulls the box out of his pocket, and kneels beside the bed, his expression so bare and so open, just like the day he’d come to her house and told her he still loved her, and says “Lizzie Bennet, will you marry me?”

She throws off the covers and seals her mouth over his as an answer.

 

Later, they’re lying in bed, drowsy and happy.  Her ring, he tells her at some point during the morning hours they spend indulging in one another, is a special creation.  The center stone is a blue diamond, and the white stones which seem to make up the petal-like design on either side come from his mother’s engagement ring.  He explains that he reserved the center stone for Gigi at some point, and that the ring he’s placed on her finger is old and new love together.   The blue, he says, was the closest he could come to matching her eyes, which seem to shift at times from blue to green and back, depending on her mood, and someone as unique and special as she required a ring that reflected that.

She can’t help but smile.  Her fingers are gently clasped in his, held over his chest, and her ring sparkles in the sunlight, and she’s fairly certain that despite the beautiful basket of geraniums that they’d sent to her mother, Mrs. Bennet is going to declare that this is _her_ favorite Mother’s Day gift ever, and unlike the news about the baby, there is no way that they will be able to keep this under wraps at all.

That thought makes her stop and begin to think about the consequences for a moment, and with reluctance, she shifts.  “Will?”

“Hmm?”  She tries not to laugh, because Will only resorts to these kinds of vocalizations instead of words when he’s enjoying a post-orgasm haze.

“Promise me something?” she asks.

“Anything,” he rumbles.  She pokes him in the side, and he yelps.

“I’m serious,” she says.

He rolls over on his side so he can look at her, drawing her close.  “So am I.  You know I would do anything in my power that you asked for me to do.”

She takes a breath before she speaks.  “Tomorrow morning, then, I want you to do something for me.”  He waits for her to continue.  “I want you to call your lawyer and ask him to draw up whatever he needs for a prenuptial agreement to protect you and Pemberley.”

Will startles, suddenly propping himself up in the bed.  “What?”

Lizzie reaches out, putting her hand on his chest.  “I do not _ever_ anticipate needing it,” she says, making sure that she’s looking him straight in the eye when she says it.  “You and I are together, and that is not going to change.  But our marriage will make your investors nervous.  Any big change does—you know that, and we’re going to be springing two on them in fairly short order.”

The confusion and panic begin to clear from his face when he realizes that Lizzie is approaching this as his fellow CEO, as well as his fiancé.  “You think having such papers drawn up would settle nerves before they even become rattled,” he says.

“Yes,” Lizzie says, nodding.  “And there are people who already think that I’m a gold-digger.  This would alleviate that somewhat.”

He frowns.  “Who thinks that?”

She shakes her head.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” he insists.  “Lizzie, I can’t think of anything further from the truth.”

“I know,” she says, cupping his cheek in her hand.  “This just helps prove it.  I’m going to be your wife, Will, so I want the board and your investors to think well of me.”

He sighs, and she knows he’s accepting her argument for this.  “I will do so on two conditions.”

“What are those?” she asks.

“The agreement covers Pemberley only, not the rest of what will be our finances,” he says, and his expression is determined.  “I won’t have a piece of paper dividing yours and mine in our personal lives.  What is mine will be yours, Lizzie, period. And in the extremely unlikely scenario in which we would divorce, you would certainly be entitled to a settlement for no other reason than that you have put up with me and because whatever would have caused such a rift would have been my fault.”

“Will—“ she says.  “That’s silly, and your lawyer really isn’t going to like it.”

“That’s why I pay him to do what I want, rather than the other way around,” Will says firmly. “The second condition is that whatever coverage or restrictions he draws up for Pemberley, the same is drawn up for Bennet Productions.  Your company deserves the same level of respect and protection.”

“My company is tiny,” Lizzie protests.  “It’s not nearly on the level of Pemberley.”

“It will be,” Will says confidently.  “Do you accept my conditions?”

She does.

 

Monday morning is a whirlwind of activity.  Darcy calls his lawyer as requested and tells him what he wants; he also tells him that in the near future he is going to want to make changes to his will and to make arrangements to set up a trust fund for the baby.  His lawyer makes arrangements to meet with Pemberley’s general counsel at the end of the week and calls Lizzie at some point to arrange a meeting with Bennet Productions’ lawyer as well.

Fitz drops by to see how the proposal had gone and does a little dance right in the middle of Darcy’s office at his friend’s evident happiness.  Then Darcy takes a meeting with a potential investor—not Terence Drake, who he can’t see now for another six months, because Drake is apparently going to climb Mount Everest or go to the International Space Station or some such nonsense, before he orders in lunch with Gigi and tells her that she’s getting a sister.  (Mrs. Reynolds hears the squeal all the way outside his office.)

It’s after lunch that his day becomes truly exciting, because he drives over to Lizzie’s office to pick her up.  She meets him outside, her face flushing, and gives him the directions to the doctor’s office, and he holds her hand the entire way there.

The waiting room is somewhat uncomfortable.  It’s very purple, for one thing, and there are many women, some in various stages of pregnancy, and a few men who look like they feel as out-of-place as Darcy does.  When the door to the back opens, a very pregnant woman waddles out, and they call Lizzie back.  She doesn’t appear nervous at all—in fact, she’s smiling and almost _glowing_ , so he follows her, nodding to the nurse who takes Lizzie’s vitals and weigh her (Lizzie’s gained three pounds since her last visit).

Dr. Puckett is a kind, if somewhat seemingly harassed, woman who shakes Darcy’s hand, and he shares a smile with Lizzie when she introduces him as her fiancé _and_ as the father of their child.  She and Lizzie talk for several minutes, going through symptoms and questions, and as Lizzie lays down on the bed, he takes Lizzie’s hand in his again, as Dr. Puckett gets out the Doppler probe and the ultrasound gel to find the heartbeat of their baby.

It takes her several minutes, enough that Darcy is starting to get nervous, because the only sound seems to be the underlying _lub-dub_ of Lizzie’s heartbeat, and Dr. Puckett wonders aloud if the baby is hiding somewhere when they hear it—a smaller, faster _lub-dub_ that causes Lizzie to clutch his hand.  “That’s our baby’s heartbeat,” she whispers.

Dr. Puckett is smiling as she works the equipment, and Darcy almost hesitates.  “Is it all right—can I record this?”

“Of course,” she says, and he pulls out his phone, starting Domino up, sans video, just to record the sound of that fluttering heartbeat.  After a moment, he shuts it off, and Dr. Puckett smiles, turning the Doppler machine off and handing Lizzie a towel to wipe off the ultrasound gel.  “148 beats per minute.  Absolutely perfect.  Everything’s going great.”

They schedule another appointment for a little over a month away, and when they get in the car, Darcy pulls out his phone again, replaying the sound of their baby’s heartbeat.  “It’s suddenly real, isn’t it?” Lizzie says.

He leans over, kissing her soundly.  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based Lizzie's ring off the engagement ring my husband gave me three and a half years ago. If you're curious as to what it looks like, you can visit over on tumblr (as carrkicksdoor) and check out my fic tags.


	7. society pages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! I've spent part of the last two weeks mom-sitting, and part of it on vacation, so it took me a while to get the chapter up, but here we are!
> 
> There are quite a few lines in the last section that come from P&P either directly or almost, so bonus points to you if you find them!

The first rumbles of trouble come from friend, not foe, and neither Darcy nor Lizzie ever even hear about it.

Gigi is working in her office, working on a submission for the Domino logo.  Many of the designers have logos they’re submitting to marketing, but Gigi is going for something different than the others, staying away from game pieces as design markers.  Instead, as she highlights a line from her tablet, she’s created a stylized image of a smirking woman, barely lifting a domino mask from her face.  Domino is supposed to be life-revealing, Gigi figures, so the coy reveal of the woman’s face behind the mask is appropriate.  Even if they decide against it, she thinks, making the line a little thicker, it will look great in her portfolio.  And honestly, it would look _really_ good as artwork in her living room.

Tom Brennan walks into her office.  Tom’s been the vice president of design for twelve years, and he’s worked for Pemberley for probably twenty years.  He’d known her parents, and he’s her boss in the odd kind of way that she has a boss other than William at Pemberley, in the way that anyone who owns a good part of the company can have a boss here.  “Hey, Tom,” she says, giving him a smile.

He sits down across from her desk, leaning back comfortably in a chair, and she turns her monitor around to show him what she’s working on.  His approval means a lot to her, and she’s pleased when he gives her a thumbs up on the design.  “So,” he says, giving her a speculative look as he leans back.  “What do you think about your big brother getting married?”

Gigi can’t help but grin.  “I knew it had gotten around.  Well, when William asks, I wasn’t the one who told.”

Tom smiles indulgently at her.  “I’ve only met this Lizzie Bennet once, I think, at a party.  What do you think of her?”

“Oh, Tom, she’s great,” Gigi says, and she begins singing Lizzie’s praises, but she finally sees the somewhat troubled look on his face.  “Why do you ask?”

“Gigi, you know things have gotten around,” he says.  “I just want to look out for you and your brother if I can.  I want this girl to be right for him.”

“She is,” Gigi assures him.  “Tom, he’s so happy.  I don’t remember ever seeing him this happy, not since I was little.  Lizzie—really, all of the Bennets—are just so incredibly kind.  Actually, Lydia, her younger sister will be here Monday to start her summer internship with legal, too, so you’ll have a chance to meet her, I’m sure.  Really, Tom, William and Lizzie are so good together—“ she gives him the most blinding smile she can muster.  “From what I remember, it reminds me of Mom and Dad.”

Satisfied, Tom nods and takes his leave, and Gigi takes a moment to look out the window of her office over the San Francisco skyline.  It was sweet for Tom to check in, she thinks, just more proof of how much the people of Pemberley care about the Darcys, especially those who had worked there long enough to remember their parents.  Then she puts it out of her mind and goes back to her drawing.

 

Neither Lizzie nor Darcy are sure who decided that the performing arts school fundraising gala needed to be held on a Thursday night, even at the beginning of June, but Pemberley Digital has offered opportunities for the high schoolers there to come in and work with the Pemberley staff, students interested in being both in front of and behind the production, so he feels like he has to make an appearance, and Lizzie, jokingly, refuses to let him go alone, out of fear that he will hide in a corner all evening.   Instead, as he walks in, Lizzie on his arm, he’s counting down how long he has to stay before they can head home and he can slip the silvery blue dress _off_ his fiancée.

They’re almost immediately harassed by a photographer from the _Chronicle_ for the society pages, and Darcy can see the _Nob Hill Gazette_ photographer making the round by the buffet table as well, because there’s nothing even more unflattering than the stilted “candid” photos of the society pages than the ones that have unfortunate souls trying to eat in the background.  Lizzie smiles the tight little smile she always gives, and he glowers at the camera, but neither of them realize that the sparkle of her ring has just picked up the light of the camera flash until Sunday morning when he’s idly flipping through the lifestyle section in search of the crossword puzzle and comes across the picture.  Under it, there’s a brief description:

 ** _William Darcy_ , **_CEO of Pemberley Digital, with **Elizabeth Bennet**_ _of Bennet Productions. Bennet was sporting a beautiful ring on her left hand.  Could a merger be in the works, personally and professionally, for these media moguls?_

He’s a little irked because Lizzie is a CEO in her own right, and the _Chronicle_ forgot to mention that, and when he silently gives the page to Lizzie, she reads it, then flips through to the wedding and engagements announcements, scanning through them before breathing a sigh of relief.  “Well, at least my mother hasn’t jumped the gun on the announcement here in San Francisco.”  She pulls up her computer and opens a link from her email to the Bennets’ local newspaper, where Mrs. Bennet waited to announce their engagement until the beginning of June, right in the middle of wedding season so everyone looking at the wedding announcements will see it.

(At least that one, Lizzie tells him later, notes that she’s the CEO of her own company.)

 

Lydia arrives that Friday with a car packed full of boxes and moves into Gigi’s spare room for the summer with squeals and hugs and the entire box set of _Angel_ on BluRay, and the four of them don’t get much unpacked because Gigi and Lydia are suddenly trading tops back and forth and pairing jewelry and shoes until Darcy finally escapes and sends up a brief prayer that their child is a boy.  It’s a prayer he doesn’t really mean, because healthy is the important thing, and as Gigi and Lydia suddenly sock slide into the living room, Lizzie’s laughter echoing behind them, he remembers that girls are their own special wonderful too.

He takes all three of them out to dinner, listening to Gigi and Lydia chatter about how they are going to be the best aunts _ever_ , Lizzie laughing and alternately volunteering them to babysit and then forbidding them from ever going near the baby. 

At dinner, Lydia perks up over her glass of wine and says, “Hey, Darce-face, I have something for you.” 

“Lydia,” Lizzie chides.  “You can’t call him Darce-face when you’re going to be working for him.”

“Calling me by my name might be more shocking than any of her abominable nicknames,” he says, raising an eyebrow at Lydia, and she winks at him.  While Darcy likes Jane, Lydia is special, partly because of everything that went along with George Wickham, and partly because she, like Lizzie, refuses to allow him to retreat back into his shell. 

Lydia triumphantly pulls three sheets of paper out of her purse, unfolds them and places them on the table next to him.  “There you go.  Grades for all three quarters, as promised, with a grade point average of 3.24 for the entire year, as per our deal.”

Lizzie and Gigi both look confused.  “Deal?” Gigi asks.

Darcy clears his throat as he scans over the final grade printouts.  Lydia shrugs.  “Well, if I’m going to be a lawyer, internships are the way to go, so I was talking to Darce here about it, and he and I made a deal.  If I kept my GPA above a 3.0 and stayed out of trouble, he would see about getting me an internship in Pemberley’s legal department.  Kind of an extra incentive.”  She takes a sip of her wine.  “So I joined the pre-law society, which was super helpful, and—“ she bounces in her chair a little bit. “—I’m going to apply to join the journal editing team next year.  UCLA has an undergraduate law review, the way most law schools have, so it’s really good practice.”

“That’s awesome,” Gigi says, all enthusiasm for Lydia’s plans, but Darcy sees Lizzie’s gaze on him, a soft smile forming on her face that warms him from the inside out. Lydia is explaining that she’s taking some classes over again to raise her grades from their levels in community college so she has a better chance of admission to law school and is cajoling Gigi into helping her study for the LSAT when Darcy clears his throat.  “I will admit, Lydia, I didn’t expect you to bring printouts of your final grades.”

“Always get it in writing,” Lydia says firmly.  “Paper trails are your friend.  See, I’m not just getting by on looks alone. I’m paying attention and actually learning something.”

He folds up the papers and hands them back to her.  “I’m proud of you, Lydia.”

“To Lydia,” Lizzie says, raising her glass.  It only has water in it, but the gesture is still there, and Lizzie’s smile is bright, but Lydia’s face outshines them all even as he and Gigi lift their glasses to clink them together as well and repeat her words, because, as Gigi puts it later, The Lydia Bennet hasn’t gotten her groove back—she’s found it.

 

Trouble finally comes storming into his office Monday morning, after Lydia arrives, and after the picture of he and Lizzie has run in the paper, when Catherine de Bourgh sweeps in with reckless disregard for his schedule and throws the _Chronicle_ down on his desk.  “What is the meaning of this? And how did this end up in the paper?” she demands.

Darcy notes that she doesn’t have Anniekins in tow, which says nothing good about her state of mind, and he sighs, getting up from his desk and going to the door.  “Mrs. Reynolds, would you please tell Ford and Clancy to go ahead and meet without me, please?”

He shuts the door behind him and returns to his desk, picking up the newspaper.  “It looks like a picture of Lizzie and I at a gala last week.”

“This,” Catherine says, jabbing a finger at the ring in the picture. “What is _this_?  Have you seriously taken leave of your senses, William Darcy and asked this girl to marry you?”

The few seconds it takes him to sit back down at his desk are enough for him to rein in his temper.  “My senses are quite intact, Aunt Catherine.  Otherwise, I am not sure I would be able to believe my good fortune that Lizzie has agreed to marry me.”

In the years since his parents died, Darcy has fought with his aunt Catherine more than once, but now he understands what it meant to see another person’s eyes flash with rage.  “You would bring this girl into the Darcy family,” she says, her low tone filled with venom.  “A woman of no importance in the world whatsoever.   A woman whose younger sister nearly ruined her family through her own bad judgment and whose family you have already done more than enough to redeem, and who you would have as a companion for Georgiana.  What are you thinking?  Have you any idea what this could do to you? And are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”

He stills, and once again, he wonders how his father and this woman could have been siblings.  “Sit down,” he says, barely recognizing his own voice.

Catherine ignores him, continuing on.  “I suppose you were too much of a coward to tell me directly, William.”

“I wanted time, not courage,” Darcy says.  “Lizzie and I have been very busy this weekend.  We had the charity gala on Thursday, her sister came into town Friday, we spent part of Saturday working on converting the study into a nursery, and—“ his voice raises “—we both own companies which require our attention!”

The horror on her face at the word nursery is almost comical, and she does finally drop into a chair, breathing hard, and for a moment, he’s concerned.   She’s not a young woman any longer, and though the stress has been of her own making, it is still stress.  “Aunt Catherine?”  He hurriedly rises and pours her a glass of water, and hands it to her.  “Here, drink this.”

She downs the glass of water in one swallow, despite how unladylike it is, and hands it back to him.  He sets it down and perches on the edge of his desk.  “She’s pregnant.  Of course.  Well, that explains everything.  Are you sure it’s yours?”

The anger that had settled down in his worry flares back up into rage.  “Yes,” he bites off.

“In this day and age, it’s still not necessary for you to marry the girl just because she’s having your child,” Catherine goes on.  “To be fair, you might want to wait until after the child comes, and then try for custody—“

Darcy stands back up, only inches from his aunt, and he has never, in his entire life, been as angry as he is at this moment.  He has been close—the day his parents died, the day he found George Wickham in Gigi’s apartment—but this anger is burning so hot and so deeply that he can barely breathe.  “Get out.”

She sniffs at him, somehow managing to look over her glasses at him despite the fact that he’s standing over him.  “William, you really must see—“

“Get out or I will have security escort you from the premises,” he says.  She’s sitting there open-mouthed, almost in shock now, and he strides over to the door, yanking it open.  “Mrs. Reynolds!” he barks.

His assistant nearly jumps from her seat, her eyes wide.  “Yes, sir!”

“Show Mrs. de Bourgh out.  If she gives you any trouble, call Security,” he growls.

Catherine is already heading for the door, and Mrs. Reynolds walks her to the elevator.  He watches, ensuring that his aunt gets on and that the elevator is going down, and Mrs. Reynolds makes a discreet call downstairs to the front desk before turning back around.  “Are you all right?” she asks.

He grinds his teeth together.  “If I said yes, would you believe me?”

“Given that right now you are the exact image of your father the only time I ever saw him in a towering rage, no,” she says.

He takes a breath, trying to reconcile his image of his father with that kind of anger.  “I never saw him lose his temper.”

“Someone had insulted your mother,” Mrs. Reynolds says.  “Your father didn’t take kindly to that.”

“I imagine not,” he says.  He reaches into his office and snags the sports coat he’d worn to the office.  “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”  The Bennet Productions offices aren’t far, and for a few minutes, whatever she can spare him, he needs Lizzie right now.


	8. people talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's been forever, but no, I've not abandoned my fic! They've just been misbehaving. In the meantime, come check out the lbdficathon AT tumblr DOT com and sign up for some of the awesome LBD prompts there!

Lizzie is working late that night, so Darcy works off some of his anger with his aunt Catherine by biking, pushing himself harder than he probably should, and he knows he’s going to feel it tomorrow.  It’s with some relief that he looks forward to getting into the shower—

—and hits his head on the showerhead.  Grimacing, he looks up at it and readjusts it upwards.  While he and Lizzie aren’t planning on moving any time soon (in fact, they’re going to get someone in to put in a door between their bedroom and the room they’re going to designate as the nursery, so they’re staying put for a while), whenever they do, he decides, he’s going to get one of those showers that saves the settings for each person who gets in.  Lizzie’s so much shorter than he is that they’re constantly readjusting it, and even after almost two years of living together, he still forgets that it’s going to be waiting to leave contusions on the back of his head.

He’s only been in for a few minutes when he hears the voice of the perpetrator of his present and future concussions.  “Will?”

“In the shower,” he calls, reaching for the shampoo so he can hurry and join her, but he’s barely rinsing the suds from his hair when the door to the shower opens and she slips in to join him, and everything bad about his day disappears, because Lizzie is in the shower with him, wet and naked, and while she’s been complaining about outfits starting to not fit anymore, today is the first time he can really see the gentle rounding of her belly.  This week, according to the app he’d installed on his phone, is week fifteen, and now that the nausea is finally abating, she looks happier and healthier.

She notices him staring.  “What?”

He gestures toward her.  “You.  You’re gorgeous.” He pulls her to him, sweeping one hand over the swell of her abdomen.  “And you’re starting to show.  Just barely.  It’s amazing.  You’re amazing.”

“I know.  I’m making a whole person in here,” Lizzie says, leaning her head against his shoulder, and he reaches up to tilt the showerhead down so the water streams down on her better, keeping any chill away.  She sighs, the sound echoing pleasantly off the tile.  “Let’s get married.”

He hums to himself.  “That is the plan.”

“No, I mean, let’s get _married_ ,” Lizzie says, still leaning against him.  “We’d been talking about after the baby comes.  Let’s get married now.”

He pulls back to look at her—to really look at her, rather than simply luxuriate in the sensual pleasure of Lizzie—and sees the stress written on her face, stress far more acute than what had been present when he’d left her office that morning.  “What happened?”

She sighs, reaching for the body wash she’d bought for him, and he hands over a washcloth as she mutters, “Catherine came to my office after lunch.”

With a rush, all of the tension that had left his body under the hot water earlier suddenly returns. “She—God—“ He’s still too Catholic to finish that particular curse, and the frustration leaves his mouth in a rush with Fitz’s favorite invective: “Motherfucker.”

“Your grandmother had better taste,” Lizzie says mirthlessly, soaping up the washcloth.  She turns him around, and sweeps the cloth over his shoulders, and he can’t help but try to roll the tension out of them as she does so.  “I told Catherine to go to hell.”

“If only she’d listen,” Darcy mumbles under his breath.

Lizzie rubs the cloth over the rest of his back and he can hear the laugh in her tone.  “I had three of the filming staff outside my office by the time we were done, all standing there with their arms crossed, ready to kick her ass.  But she left quietly.  And all I could think was that we are going to deal with people questioning us and our decision to get married, and until we actually get married, they’re going to do it openly.  So why not go ahead and get married?”  She finishes soaping up his back and gives him a playful slap on the rear to let him know that she’s done.  He turns around, reaching up to the showerhead to redirect the water to spray at her, and she tosses the washcloth at him with a giggle.

He pulls her to him, letting the water run over them both.  “You want to get married now?”

“Actually, I was thinking maybe over the fourth of July,” she suggested, tilting her head back and letting the water cascade down her hair.  “If we wait too long, I’ll never fit in a dress.”

He lets his hands run over her stomach.  “That’s when.  What about where?”

“The gardens at Pemberley,” she suggests.  “We invite immediate family.  The Lus, the Lees, Fitz and Brandon. Anyone else really close that we want.”

“Fitz’s mother and stepfather,” he says, considering, pulling Lizzie’s body wash out of the shower caddy and working the gel into a lather in her sponge.  “Mrs. Reynolds and her husband.”  His mind is racing even as he smoothes the fragrant scented bubbles onto her skin.  They keep chairs and tables for events in the garden, and Pemberley already has world-class dining that could cater if Lizzie wanted that, and for a wedding a small as this, the garden’s pavilion is large enough for dancing—

His train of thought is suddenly and incredibly effectively derailed.  “Lizzie,” he growls.

She laughs, taking her hands away.  “I’m sorry.  It’s not fair to ask you things when you’re in that condition.”

It doesn’t matter, of course, because he will do anything for her, no matter where the all the blood in his body is rushing.  If it was truly the fondest desire of her heart to see him perform the chicken dance for tourists, he would glue feathers to himself and go flapping his arms up and down Lombard Street.  He does, of course, make the mistake of saying this out loud, and her peals of laughter echo off the tile, and he feels his face flush red.

“As entertaining as that might be, I wouldn’t ask that of you,” she says, her hands returning to where they’d been, and her voice taking on a sultry, teasing tone.  “But I might ask for something else.”

 

(Later, she starts giggling to herself in bed, and when he asks her what’s so funny, she brings back up doing the chicken dance down Lombard Street.  He groans and asks her to please never bring that up in front of Fitz, and she shakes her head, saying that she imagines there will be plenty of other amazingly silly things to watch him do when the baby comes.  In particular, if they have a little girl, she’s looking forward to seeing him at a tea party with a feather boa around his neck, trying to do his Gigi voice.  He just grins, because what Lizzie doesn’t know is that there’s a picture of a very patient looking sixteen-year-old William sitting at a tiny table with a thrilled not-quite-six-year-old Gigi serving him sugar water and cookies _somewhere_ around here.)

 

Darcy half expects the news that Lizzie’s pregnant to spread like wildfire once his Aunt Catherine hears about it, but she must be angry enough that she keeps it to herself, and though it is no longer a secret, he himself is the culprit behind the news dashing around Pemberley.  He’s rushing into a meeting, late, apologizing, and as he opens his portfolio, preparing to start the meeting with some of the other executives, the slip of paper floats out, eluding his grasp as he tries to catch it, landing on the glossy surface of the conference table, clearly showing the ultrasound picture from the appointment that had caused both he and Lizzie to run late.

There’s a moment of silence, and he feels his face turn red, but Jake Smith, the vice president of accounting, a big boisterous man from Texas, lets out one of his great booming laughs as he picks up the picture, and lets his Southern congeniality take over.  “Well, now, are congratulations in order here?” he says, inspecting the picture.  “Says E. Bennet in the corner here.”  He winks at Darcy, passing the picture down the table back toward him.

“I—yes,” Darcy says, smoothing down his tie, unable to keep the smile from quirking his lips upward.  “Lizzie and I are expecting an addition in early December.”

There’s a round of congratulations from the table, and Rose Mayor speaks up from her seat.  “I just saw that you and Lizzie are getting married too, though, aren’t you?” she asked.

“We are,” he nods.  “We’ve been engaged for a while.”  He doesn’t say how long, because it’s none of their business, but there’s another round of congratulations.  Still, he sees pencils starting to tap against desks and sideways looks, but they’re here to do business, so he takes the ultrasound picture back from his executives and tucks it back into the front of his portfolio where he can see it every time he looks down.  (If he shows it off a little after the meeting, that’s another thing entirely.)

 

Lydia and Gigi (and Fitz) are deep into helping Lizzie plan the wedding by the following weekend, their stores of inexhaustible energy now reaching forth in that direction to pull together everything they might need.  The only thing they aren’t dealing with is Lizzie’s dress, something which Jane has been consulting privately with Lizzie about over Domino, and as Lizzie tells Will later, she has complete faith in her older sister’s fashion sense.

It’s a rare quiet moment when Gigi and Fitz have gone out to retrieve something to eat that Lydia perches herself on the sofa next to Lizzie, her expression serious.  “Lizzie, you’re my big sister, and I love you, you know that right?”

Lizzie turns to look Lydia and says, “Of course, I do,” and desperately hopes this isn’t going to be about who is going to be maid of honor, because she’s decided that Jane and Lydia are both going to be maids of honor, but whether which sister stands directly next to Lizzie or not will depend entirely on whether Will asks Bing or Fitz to be his best man (because Jane, of course, should walk with Bing).

“And you know I’ve got platonic big brother love feelings for the Darcenator too,” Lydia adds.  “Cause he’s a dork, but most of the time, he’s pretty awesome.”

“He is pretty awesome, yes,” Lizzie says.

Lydia takes a deep breath and all her words rush out at once.  “Why is he making you sign a pre-nup?  Because I heard them talking about it in the office, and people were saying how smart it was, and some other stuff and I kind of understand and you’re going to be awesome and even if you two dorks did screw up, you totally wouldn’t need it anyway because you would wipe Pemberley into the ground with your company, but it didn’t seem right.”

“Who was saying something?” Will’s voice says calmly as he enters the room. 

Lydia’s face flushes, and she shakes her head, refusing to say, but Lizzie covers her little sister’s hand with her own, because there’s something so sweet and kind about Lydia wanting to make sure that everything is going to be okay for her.  “Lydia, the pre-nup was my idea,” she reassures her.  “It’s a good way to keep Pemberley’s investors calm.”

“It covers Pemberley and Bennet Productions both,” Will adds, sitting down on the coffee table across from them.  “But it covers them only.  In every other way, Lizzie and I are joining our lives together.”  His eyes are warm as he looks at Lizzie.  “I wouldn’t have asked for one.”

“I know you wouldn’t have,” Lizzie says softly.  “That’s why I’m the one who brought it up.”

“I thought they were kind of par for the course with the rich and reasonably famous,” Lydia said, curling her legs up underneath her.

“It depends on the people involved,” Will says, turning back to Lydia.  “Who was saying something about it, Lydia?”

“Will,” Lizzie says, squeezing his hand in warning, but he looks at her.  “Lizzie.  I won’t have people saying things about you.”

“You can’t stop people from saying things about me,” Lizzie says.  “They’re going to think whatever they want to think, no matter what you do or say, and the more you protest, the more they’re going to think they’re right.  And if Lydia tells you, then she looks like a spy in the midst.  The only thing that will convince them are years of happy marriage and happy children.”

“Trust me, on this, Darce,” Lydia says darkly.  “People will think whatever they want.  So fuck them.”

Gigi and Fitz return, bearing food at that point, and Lydia bounces off the couch to meet them.  Lizzie looks at Will and smiles.  “It’ll be fine.  We learned to look past our first impressions.  Other people will too.”

He returns her smile and leans over to kiss her gently.  She tries to put the whole thing out of her mind, but as he breathes softly beside her in the dark that night, she wonders just exactly what Lydia has heard.


	9. the beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is the first day I have felt like writing in months. I've been snowed under with dissertation and depression, and only today did Lizzie and Darcy come back to ask me to finish this story. So here it is, the final chapter. I hope it was worth waiting for.

Pemberley hosts a company-wide picnic on July 4th, and since they’ve done everything else backwards, it seems, they hold the reception before the ceremony in conjunction with the celebrations.  The wedding rehearsal itself is held in the morning before the festivities begin.  

It had actually all been Caroline’s idea, surprisingly.  Having everyone to the party fulfilled the social obligations that came with being in Darcy’s position and still allowed the small family wedding that they wanted the next day.  Caroline’s party-planning company had been in charge of the arrangements, and she had struck an excellent balance between the patriotic theme and wedding elegance, decking out the Pemberley gardens in sprays of gold and silver firework-like stars and sprays, rather than red, white and blue.  Gigi is enthusiastically texting pictures of the decorations, most of which will stay up for the wedding the next day, and Lizzie has to admit that Caroline, who has been working incredibly hard to make amends for her previous behavior, has outdone herself.

Or she would, if her phone wasn’t plucked immediately out of her hand by her older sister.  “Stay still,” Jane orders, eyebrows raised in a manner that brooked no argument.  She’d come from New York with most of a dress already constructed, but with the lace overlay yet to be attached, so she could be sure that the dress would fit Lizzie’s ever-changing form.  “This is the last bit I have to pin together.  Then all I have to do is sew the lace on.”

Lizzie sighs.  She’s been used as Jane’s pincushion long enough to know better than to argue, and Jane does have to handstitch the rest of the lace on this evening.  Still, as Lizzie catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, even with the pins sticking out, she knows she’s going to look lovely.  A lace covered, tea length dress, almost a cross between an A-line and an empire waist—simple, but elegant.  It’s a perfect Jane design, and Jane herself had given Will his marching orders when it came to his suit.  Jane, Lydia, Charlotte, and Gigi are all wearing dresses—already completed—of the same shape and length as Lizzie’s, but in a shimmery gold.

“There,” Jane says, tone satisfied, and they begin the careful process of removing the dress without dislodging any of the pins or sticking Lizzie with them.  Then, because she’s Jane, and she knows these things, she fixes Lizzie with a look.  “Are you okay?”

Lizzie passes a hand over the swell of the baby, the little bit of both she and Will that lives inside her.  “I’m nervous,” she admits.  “Not about the wedding or about getting married.  There are people who think I’m gold-digging, and I’m afraid they’re going to make life difficult for Will.”

“His Aunt Catherine?” Jane says, as Lizzie pulls her street clothes back on. 

“She’s one of them,” Lizzie admits.  “But I know there have been other people wondering.”  She’s not stupid—she knows that Fitz and Gigi, in particular, have been waging a PR war on her behalf at Pemberley of late.  She also knows that the fourth of July party/reception for the whole company is also sending a statement of sorts.  “I don’t want to cause him problems.”

Jane laughs, setting aside her burden of fabric and lace.  “Lizzie, what do you think marriage is?  It’s being the other person’s problem for the rest of time.  He’s taking it willingly—happily!  The two of you love each other more than anything in this world, and people will see that.”  She takes Lizzie’s hand.  “This morning, at the rehearsal, do you know what I saw?  Darcy’s face always looks so stern.”  She does her impression of him, and Lizzie laughs.  “The moment he saw you, everything that was so stern in his face just—softened.  And as soon as you saw him, you just lit up, because he was standing there, and he is everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Lizzie smiles.  “He is.”

“Anyone who can’t look at the two of you and see how much you two love one another is someone who hasn’t had the experience of true love in their lives,” Jane says.  “They aren’t people to be afraid of, Lizzie.  They’re people to be pitied.”

 

Darcy is wandering around the grounds, shaking hands, introducing Lizzie to spouses and children of some of the Pemberley employees, all of whom are wishing them their congratulations, and he just _knows_ that he’s smiling like an idiot to have Lizzie by his side, her arm tucked into his, but he can’t bring himself to care.  He doesn’t leave her side at all, not until she pokes him, informs him that his child is hungry, and tells him to go get her something to eat.

He’s waylaid by more well-wishers, and when he returns, he hears the voices before he sees them—Catherine and Lizzie again, but Lizzie’s voice is calm and untroubled.  “Have you ever loved anyone in your entire life, Catherine?”

“You impudent—“ Catherine begins, but Lizzie cuts her off.

“I don’t know if you loved your husband,” Lizzie says quietly.  “Or if you love Will and Gigi.  I really don’t.  I can’t see into your heart, Catherine.  But I know this.  I love Will, and I would do anything for him.”

“Then leave,” Catherine says imperiously.  “Before you drag him down.”

“No,” Lizzie says, her voice still calm.  “If there’s one thing that he and I have both learned, it’s that you can’t make decisions of the heart for other people.  The only person who could tell me to leave him would be him.  And he won’t.”

“No, not that you’ve maneuvered yourself into carrying his child,” Catherine says nastily.

Lizzie laughs.  “Catherine, I’m not going to change your mind about any of this. If you can come and be pleasant tomorrow, please do.  But if you can’t—if you are just going to try to make Will miserable—then stay home.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” Catherine says.

“Yes, she does,” Darcy says, unable to stand by any longer.  He hands Lizzie the plate of food he’d brought and searches her face for a moment, but sees nothing but her love and acceptance.  “Aunt Catherine, Lizzie is my life.  We don’t have much family left, but tomorrow, she will be joining it, and soon, our family will grow.   It may grow more than that—Sidney wants to speak with me when Lizzie and I return from our honeymoon, and I think I know why.” 

The words seem to fly over Catherine’s head.  “Fine.  I can tell where I’m not wanted, William Darcy.”  She turns, stalking off, and the press of Lizzie’s hand against his is what makes him open his mouth once again.

“Aunt Catherine?” he calls, and his aunt halts her footsteps for a second.  “I love you.”

She stays still a moment longer, then disappears out of sight.

 

Superstitions aside, they wake up together the morning of their wedding, Will’s arm protectively draped around Lizzie, fingers splayed across her abdomen, and the alarm hasn’t gone off yet when she feels it, something subtle, and she first thinks it’s a distinctly un-sexy case of gas until it happens again and there’s something else.  “Will,” she says, covering his hand with her own, pressing it against her belly.  “Will, I just felt the baby move.”

Her words startle him out of his half-awake state, and he props himself up on one elbow to lean over her.  “What?”

“Here,” she says, moving his hand a little lower, and then she feels it again.  “There!”

He shakes his head, looking disappointed.  “I didn’t feel it.”

“It may be a few weeks before you can,” she said.  “But the baby’s moving.  Today.”

Will pulls her over to face him.  “On our wedding day.”

His phone begins to ring the alarm, and he reaches over, turning it off before gathering her back up in his arms.  In a few minutes, it will go off again, and they will get out of bed.  The Bennet sisters will converge, and Lizzie will be whisked away to a salon to have her hair done.  He will spend the morning putting up with Fitz and Bing and Brandon offering well-meaning and increasingly ridiculous advice about his wedding night.  Gigi will rush back and forth between Lizzie and Will, and Sidney will patiently pick up anything that’s been forgotten at the apartment.  Mrs. Bennet will cry so much that Lydia finally makes her mother take off all her makeup and reapply it, sans mascara, before the ceremony.

The old priest who performed the marriage ceremony for his parents and who christened Will and Gigi will arrive, walking on his cane, but he will stand unassisted through the entire ceremony.  Darcy will feel his heart nearly explode when Lizzie walks down the path to the arbor where he stands waiting for her, like he’s been waiting for her his entire life.  Lizzie will hand her bouquet to Jane and take his hands, and they will recite age old words and bow their heads while their union is blessed before God.  Catherine is not there, but no one will notice, because the bride and groom will be so deeply in love.  They will kiss each other as husband and wife for the first time, as passionate and tender as the kiss they shared on Lizzie’s video, and Fitz will start up the cheer as they separate and head down the aisle together.

But for now, for this brief, silent moment, before the hubbub and chaos, they lie together, their little family, and love.


End file.
